Aunt Dimity Goes West

Aunt Dimity Goes West

Nancy Atherton

4 out of 5

I can’t believe that I’m up to book number 12 in this series. I love these characters and can’t wait until I can read the next.

This book did catch me a bit off guard. Dimity seems to have a harder edge in her writing to Lori. Not that Lori doesn’t need it, but Dimity has always been the soft sympathetic ear that Lori desperately needs.

As Lori is trying to recuperate from her near death experience with Abbadon, Bill decides to literally take the bull by the horns and sends Lori and the boys as far away from Finch as possible. That being a ranch in Bluebell, Colorado. Lori’s not too sure about this, picturing a shack but what the Aerie turns out to be is a spectacular home perched over an abandoned mine. But this isn’t the quirky part, that lies in the people of Bluebird itself. They all remarkably resemble Lori’s friends back in Finch. Even Dimity thinks that Lori has finally lost it, that is until she, Dimity, meets her own counterpart.

When Lori finds out that the homes owners left in a hurry vowing to never return, everyone in town talking about the curse and the twins start picking up bad language that they swear they hear in their room at night -- the overly curious Lori embarks on getting to the bottom of this. With the help of the caretaker they enter the mine that should have been closed off years ago.

Chardonnay Charade

Chardonnay Charade

Ellen Crosby

4 out of 5

In my opinion, this second in the Wine Country Mystery series by Ellen Crosby is much better than the first. There doesn't seem to be as much of a rush to the end and the characters are better drawn with a more relaxed feel to the whole book.
Lucie Montgomery is the heiress of the Montgomery Estate Vineyard in Middleburg, Virginia, but being an heiress isn't all that it's cracked up to be, especially when she has to keep her family in order, that includes a younger sister who is battling he own demons, keeping a vineyard profitable, employees that seem to have their own agenda, and oh yeah, a dead body to deal with.

Virginia Greenwood, the wife of the local doctor, and quite a personality herself, is found murdered and though there aren’t many suspects the murder is too easily pinned on the one person who can't defend himself, the man that she has been having secret rendezvous with. When he disappears that only leaves one person; the one person that Lucie entrusted her life too.

Like a good vintage, this series gets better with age. Sorry, I couldn’t avoid throwing in a cliché.

A Cold Dish

A Cold Dish

Caig Johnson

5 out of 5

As the title implies revenge is the theme of this book. When Cody Pritchard is found dead, Walt Longmire just knows that life is going to get complicated for his small town Sheriff's Department. Cody was a member of a gang of four that were arrested and tried for the sexual assault of a local Cheyenne woman - and when the men only received a light sentence the community was in an uproar, now that one of the golden four is dead, there are just too many suspects.

Sheriff Longmire initially suspects the Cheyenne community and with the help of his good friend, Henry Standing Bear, who also happens to be a suspect, the investigating begins. Now if only Walt can keep his professional distance maybe a reasonable conclusion can come about. But with the death of his wife 4 years before and a mourning process that just won't end, a new love interest, an unbelievable cast of characters, both in his own office and the community, Walt just might get to the bottom of this mess. That is if his bathroom shower curtain doesn't repeatedly try to wrap him up like a human burrito.

With a surprising ending and laugh out loud humor this is definitely a series worth continuing. And who knew, you can actually buy a helicopter out of the Neiman Marcus catalog.

Shelter Me

Shelter Me
Juliette Fay

3 out of 5

Banking on the tried and true format of young mother with young children whose husband is killed and she must climb out of her depression with the help of family and oh, yeah, a hunky man all neatly wrapped up in the span of one year. Not to say that this is a bad book, but it's just been done before.

Four months after her husbands untimely death, a building contract shows up to build the dream porch that Janie LaMarche's husband had planned as a surprise, she decides to let Tug go ahead, why not, if she thinks of it as her husband's last gift to her then possibly she can find some peace in it.

Peace is what she needs especially when her family priest keeps making weekly visits and her overly obnoxious but loving aunt, keep trying to help. Help that is that she wishes had truly come from her own mother who seems to be only interested in her own life and spent a grand total of 7 days with Janie when her husband died.

With funny and bittersweet moments, this book tugs on all the right heartstrings.